Eschewing the spare, sloppy raiment that looked like it was fished out of dumpster behind a Goodwill that had gone out of business a long while back, billionaire Mark Zuckerberg donned a poorly knotted tie and unofficially officially launched his bid for the Democratic nomination for 2020 at the Political Correctness University Commencement.
This was the main Commencement, incidentally, not the one the blacks of that university held on their own.
Standing under PC’s emblem, on which is emblazoned its stirring motto Verum Non Ut Rideam, and doubtless inspired by the words, Zuckerberg rallied the crowd with cries of “Panem et circenses! Panem et circenses!”
Every generation expands its definition of equality. Now it’s time for our generation to define a new social contract. We should have a society that measures progress not by economic metrics like GDP but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.
Little Z, if I may call him that, is right. Every generation does indeed broaden and expand the definition of Equality, aiming toward the goal of Hell On Earth where a mandated and enforced equality of all in everything will be like a pall smothering all existence. At least we’ll then find our roles of trying to escape full of terrible meaning.
When you don’t have the freedom to take your idea and turn it into a historic enterprise, we all lose.
Would that the nascent Dr Guillotines among us could form their historic enterprises. I weep for our loses! Shouldn’t everybody get to be CEO of their own historic enterprises and make billions of dollars? If not, we all lose. It isn’t fair. Equality demands not that Little Z sell his possessions and follow the Lord, but that we change the system so that all of us can be rich.
…our society is way over-indexed in rewarding people when they’re successful…
Success brings it owns rewards, Little Z? Is it even possible to define success without the notion of reward? I’ll answer for you: no, it is not.
…and we don’t do nearly enough to make sure that everyone can take lots of different shots. Now let’s face it. There is something wrong with our system, when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in ten years, while millions of students can’t afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business.
He managed to get humble bragging and pandering into the same plug. This means he has native political chops. But what’s this, Little Z, about affording loans? Did you yourself not wisely drop out of school? Or is it that we should not only guarantee everybody free money, but also free funds so that they can start a business and make billions of dollars in ten years? Equality says yes.
I know too many people who haven’t had the chance to pursue their dreams, because they didn’t have a cushion to fall back on if they failed.
So it’s not only a guaranteed income, and guaranteed funds to start a business, but also guaranteed cushions for people to fall back on. That’s a lot of guaranteeing. Little Z has the excessive promising part of political speeches well in hand.
You didn’t build that.
Wait, no. That was the other guy. But Little Z did a good imitation.
Are PC University students, perhaps the most spoiled and coddled children in all of history, really appealed to by arguments of monetary Equality? Aye, they are. Which isn’t a paradox, but proof that coddling makes weak minds.
And we’re all gonna make mistakes. So we need a society that’s less focused on locking us up and stigmatizing us when we do.
Dead silence from the audience. I don’t think anybody told him about that separate graduation.
Listen here, Mark. Take some good advice from your Uncle Briggs. Better make it 2024. Until you can learn to become a better speaker, you’ll get eaten alive in any head-to-head contest. Besides, as it stands now, Trump takes 2020.
One last thing. Your name is unfortunate. I don’t mean that you’re Jewish. Being Jewish didn’t stop people from feeling the Bern. No. It’s that your handle is too easy to pick on. Zuck sucks. Zuck the cuck. Duck! It’s Zuck!. Buck Zuck. Memes of big-nosed icebergs sinking ships. S(z)uckers calling the masses suckers. Hey. Don’t blame me. I’m just guessing. This is a democracy where everybody gets to vote, so these things matter.
Now how many folks can make a product that everybody uses, nobody needs, is essentially produced by the folks who use it, and makes the guy who created it a billionaire? How is this possible? What kind of a world do we live in anyway?
When you use Facebook, you are the product. And the more you reveal of yourself in your likes, the more precisely you can be targeted by Facebook’s actual customers, the advertisers.
That was explained to me many moons ago: the Customers are the people who give you money. The Product is what you give to the people who give you the money. Hence, Universities sell Courses (listed in a Product Catalog) to Parents, who use them to groom their children. Chaos ensued when they gave their kids credit cards and set them loose in the department store.
Similarly, the television networks sold eyeballs to advertisers. The shows were simply ways to put eyeballs before the screens at designated hours. That is, as Mr. Harsadin said above, you are the product being sold by Facebook to the advertisers. If enough people visit your site, some percentage of them will notice the ad, and some percentage of those will click through. It’s like those mass emails. With the low, low costs of individuals setting up their sites, we don’t have to worry about cancellations. Unless someone complains.
Michael Dowd: A very, very foolish one. However, it does require affluence, guilt and blatant stupidity to make such a world work. It’s a yin-yang thing.
Zuckerberg feels intense guilt for having gotten rich simply by duping stupid people, so he wants everyone to get rich by being duped. That Zuckerberg is the one doing the duping completely eludes him. He doesn’t see the horns of evil on his own head.
This will work out fine until everyone gets a base income and then stays home. Zuckerberg will find running Facebook all alone may be impractical. There will be no one to fix computers, TVs, nothing. Who works when you get food, entertainment, etc. Forget medical care. That will have to be rationed. Only the truly dedicated will change adult diapers and clean up vomit while earning no more than anyone else. Forget personal injury lawyers—they are “unfair” (an upside, yes) and stiffle creativity. Forget garbage collection. Forget sewer workers. Who’s going to muck out sewers if they aren’t paid more than sitting at home? Zuck better change not only his name but his place of residence very, very quickly at that point. Hopefully, his guilt for having earned money for nothing will be soothed at that point.
Sheri —
Wow! Your response reads like something from Marxists.org — full of labor theory of value, commodity fetishism, class envy, etc.
It is amazing how some folks on the supposed right become apoplectic when faced by the success of others. I can almost “feel the Bern.”
Note: Of course his vision is nonsensical and dangerous. Nevertheless, he duped no one.
Big Zucker is watching you
“launched his bid for the Democratic nomination”
I am unaware of any political party named democratic. Is he seeking the democratic Democrat party nomination or the democratic Republican party nomination?
Briggs,
If I believed in hell, I would say that you are heading straight for it. Other than Trump I don’t know anyone who is more dishonest than you.
Sylvain —
Uh … maybe … you.
You disagree with that which Briggs writes. This you term lying — ’cause anything that challenges your (small) worldview must be a lie.
However, remember our last exchange, where I caught you in a big lie. Yet you still write on.
Have you no shame?
Note: You will respond with the typical SJW attack. However, none of that rectifies your history of lying.
I wish I were in second place to Trump at something.
Jim,
In our last exchange you made up a lie that you claim that you have caught me in. The lies was yours not mine.
My point was that hospital CEOs in the were making a lot more money than those from Canada. I presented facts that most in the US makes over $1 million (which I had underestimated by at least $400k) and up to $6 millions. While underestimating by about $150k for Canadian CEOs. The result is that the difference between Canadian and US hospital CEOs is greater than I first estimated.
Meanwhile Briggs stated: “You didn’t build that.”
Referring to Barrack Obama, but he is lying about its real meaning:
“Obama, July 13: There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.”
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/you-didnt-build-that-uncut-and-unedited/
acricketchirps,
There is one domain in which you are in front of Trump, you are a bigger idiot.
Sylvain —
I’ll leave the reader with this …
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/21078/
You stated this as fact (https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/21078/):
The reader can read the exchange, as well as my embedded links, to see how your arguments consist of lies.
As far as what Briggs stated, you may disagree with it, which is not unexpected given your worldview and lack of understanding in general.
However, to call him a liar when lying is what you do … we are done here.
Zuck, you’re fired. Reality is what it is. For us humans, the only equality there is, happens to be under God (Existence itself) and before the law. With people like you, philosophically, we even lose the last one.
Do you know how and why you were handsomely rewarded for Facebook? As stated above, Facebook is one of the lowest cost mass advertising mechanisms ever made. Sellers pay you $0.01 per click or whatever to reach potential buyers. The value lies with them, not you. It seems to me that you no longer have any value to add, so enjoy living off the proceeds of your previously valuable work.
Free markets are the only way for everyone to be rich, but they’ll only be as rich as the value they make as seen in the mind’s eye of willing buyers. Thus, no one will ever be equally rich. You want us to be all equally miserable. Count me out. By the way, that won’t make us all equally poor, either. Those that can, will still do and find a way around you and your fellow travelers.
Free markets are also never unfettered. They are self-regulating inherently. So when I hear some dupe pushing ‘common sense’ regulation of markets, I laugh; for if these were indeed common sense, the market would be using them, even if you weren’t aware of it. Being damped-driven and deterministically chaotic, the more you push on them with government force, the more violent the potential state change. Beware of what you ask for, Zuck, you just might get it good and hard up your excretory orifices.
There is an underlying simplicity here, I think. Sheri is right, the Left is dominated by the entitled have-nots and the guilty haves. The Right realizes that the Left’s idealism is short-sighted and ultimately self-destructive, necessarily having the long-term effect of breaking the successful system which has provided the Left the luxury of spending so much of their lives on omphaloskepsis.
But the Right has proved far from proficient in explaining to the Left why their ideas are so bad. For example, consider the question “Does Little Z deserve his wealth?” I submit that Capitalism only requires us to ask two interrelated questions to evaluate this question:
1) How free is the market that has provided Little Z his wealth?
2) What is the society’s return on investment in providing Little Z his wealth?
If the answer to the first question is “very free”, then the answer to the second question should be, on average in the USA, somewhere around 20-to-1. In other words, in a totally free market, Little Z would have to create $20 in value to acquire an additional $1 in wealth.
A couple things to note here. One, value is not determined by outside observers, but by the participants in the relevant market. Two, society has decided that perfectly free markets are not necessarily always good. We regulate markets; we enforce rules that allow certain monopolies to exist; we like certain monopolies to exist, since it provides a de facto standard; we grant monopolies via patents and copyrights to encourage certain types of innovation; we allow an army of lawyers to have a say in determining winners and losers; etc, etc, etc.
On the 20-to-1 number, a consequence of this is that taxing success in a free market removes on average of $20 in value from society for every $1 in tax revenue. If the government uses that revenue to build a needed road, there is a good chance that society will see a higher return than 20-to-1. But if the government gives that $1 to an unemployed person with the ability to work, the cost to society is much higher than $1.
This should help put the Left’s “tax the rich” mantra in better perspective.
Milton —
Did you just hypostatize society? Are you arguing from collectivism?
Jim – collectivism? Not just no, but hell no.
I was attempting to channel one of my heroes, the great Thomas Sowell, using the language of macroeconomics. Apparently I failed, so forget what I wrote, and read something by Thomas Sowell instead – anything will do.
Here are the points I had hoped to make:
– Our economy should be as close to a free market as practical
– Individuals and business entities should be given as much economic freedom as possible, and must be given accountability for all their decisions
– Economic decisions should be made at the lowest level possible (for the sake of freedom and accountability)
– When a politician says “you didn’t build that”, be very, very afraid.
Sylvain – have you been to Venezuela recently? Maybe we should take up a collection to send you there on a fact-finding mission.
Milton —
OK. It is your appeal to society that appears to be a utilitarian view, which easily leads to the state and collectivism.
Remember, only individuals act. And they do so based on their individual preferences.
There is nothing that is, per se, best for society. Society cannot have a return on investment, so to speak, unless property has been socialized. And, even then, a claim of a societal ROI is specious, at best.
Also, to believe government can achieve a societal ROI greater than one is to appeal to society (as stated above) and the efficiency of government. If government can achieve a 20 times investment — an investment at the point of the gun, then Sylvain has an argument that, with the right folks in charge, government can establish heaven on earth.
Not my views.
Milton,
Have you been to Somalia lately. Here is a free market in a lawless country.
A free market can only be free under a strong government that can reach the entirety of its land domain and of the individual that lives on it.
By te late 1800s, the USA had stopped being a free market thank to the trust and corruption. Only under strong president did the US congress passed anti-trust laws which Major League Baseball is still the only exception.
It is now a little more than a century since those anti-trust laws and the US finds itself at the height of corruption where a few billionaires control to misinformation a large part of mind wash population which you are a perfect example.
Jim,
“Sylvain has an argument that, with the right folks in charge, government can establish heaven on earth.”
You absolutely miss-state my point of view. Which I think is deliberate on your part and wouldn’t be the first time.
My point of view is that government is inevitable. No matter how large is the land domain, there will always be a government that will establish rules.
Any US militia, sect or even corporation will establish a code of living that has to be followed by its members. Among the strictest such rule will be those established by militia over there members. Often their taxes will by higher than what you pay or should pay at state or federal level.
“…to call him a liar when lying is what you do”
HA! Jim, that’s not logical, it’s a head shake remark. A tut tut.
1 If a liar calls someone else a liar then you might believe them or not based on your experience that the liar is not to be trusted.
However this has no actual bearing on whether the liar is telling the truth that the other is a liar.
2 If you had a point I think you’re trying to call the kettle black!
3 You can trust a thief or a murderer sometimes but you can NEVER trust a liar.
Joy —
I think I see your point — it sounds like some version of the liar’s paradox.
However, I was really pointing out Sylvain’s hypocrisy, as well as expressing my exasperation in the form of an incompletely expressed, easily understood (or so I believed when writing it) thought (note my use of ellipsis).
It’s okay Jim,
Exasperation is warranted.
I didn’t mean any harm.
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